Asus ZenPad S 8.0 (Z580CA) Review and Ratings

Editors’ Rating:

Our Verdict:
With a nice screen and speakers, the ZenPad S 8.0 delivers a media-consumption experience mostly on par with higher-priced premium slates—we’d just like to see more battery life and less bloatware. Read More…

What We Liked…

High-resolution 2K IPS screen

Ample storage and RAM

MicroSD slot

Thin, attractive design

Dual front-facing speakers

What We Didn’t…

Occasional performance hitches when gaming

Other high-end tablets of its size have better battery life

ZenUI and bloatware degrade the software experience

Asus ZenPad S 8.0 (Z580CA) Review

Table of Contents

Introduction & Design

Given Dell’s $500-plus Venue 10 7000, Apple’s just-announced $799 iPad Pro, and Microsoft’s Surface Pro 3, it’s clear that tablet makers think the market is still clamoring for high-end, high-priced slates—at least when the focus of them is on productivity.

These are big tablets. When it comes to more compact slates designed for media consumption and casual gaming, though, prices drop a bit. When we wrote this in mid-September 2015, the high-end offerings among mid-size tablets (that is, ones with screens around 8 inches diagonal, give or take a half an inch) were selling for around $400. That includes high-profile models such as Apple’s new iPad Mini 4, Dell’s Venue 8 7000, and Sony’s Xperia Z3 Compact.

Asus’ latest “high-end” slate, the ZenPad S 8.0, takes a very different tack: low-end pricing. The ZenPad S 8.0 line, first exhibited at Computex 2015, starts at $199, and that bumps up to $299 with a faster processor, an ample 64GB of storage (plus a MicroSD slot), and 4GB of RAM in the Z580CA model we tested. It seems the company is out to prove you don’t have to pay quite so much to have yourself a premium tablet experience.

And from the outside, it feels like one. With a thin, attractive shell, dual front-facing speakers, and an attractive 2K (2,048x1,536-pixel) screen on both models, along with a capable Intel Atom processor under the hood, the ZenPad S 8.0 certainly delivers the goods when it comes to hardware and specs.

We did have some quibbles once we dug in with this tablet, though. The company’s ZenUI complicates the Android experience, and Asus also clutters up the ZenPad S with unnecessary apps—many of which can’t be easily uninstalled. Also, the battery life doesn’t quite keep up with that of other high-end slates, and we noted some occasional performance stutters when gaming.

As a result, the ZenPad S 8.0 falls short of greatness for the money. You get a lot of tablet for the price, but it’s not one for serious tablet gamers, nor folks who need to run it all day away from a power source.

Design

The ZenPad S 8.0 is nothing if not an attractive tablet. It’s plenty slim, at just 6.6mm thick, and at 10.5 ounces it weighs slightly less than the brand-new, $399 Apple iPad Mini 4, which rolled out in the second week of September. (That model, like earlier iPad Minis, has a 7.9-inch screen. We should have a review of that model in the coming weeks.)

The ZenPad S 8.0 comes in a choice of color schemes--white or black--and the latter version we tested had a brushed-metal back panel, set off with shiny silver edges. The lower portion of the rear (if you’re holding the ZenPad S 8.0 in landscape orientation) is made of a soft-touch plastic that aids in making the tablet more grippable.

The combination of materials makes for a look that’s a little busier than the sleek back of Apple’s all-metal iPads and iPad Minis. But to our eyes, the ZenPad S 8.0 looks just as good. And there’s one item back in the plastic portion that Apple has yet to match: a MicroSD slot, for expanding the onboard storage. (It supports cards up to 128GB in capacity.) The plastic portion was likely incorporated to improve the Wi-Fi connectivity, as well.

Things look even better on the tablet’s front side, with a Gorilla Glass-covered IPS screen sporting an impressive 2,048x1,536-pixel resolution. Interestingly, that matches the iPad’s pixel count, and the screen’s 4-to-3 aspect ratio is also iPad-esque. Most high-resolution tablets at this screen size go for the usual 1,920x1,080, and a few, like the Samsung Galaxy Tab S 8.4, go their own route with a 2,560x1,600 panel.

Now, we have seen better screens in tablets this size, namely the OLED displays on Samsung’s high-end Galaxy Tab S line of tablets, as well on Dell’s Venue 7000 slates. And the screens in the Retina-display iPad Minis are none too shabby. But the ZenPad S 8.0’s screen is still great, especially considering that this device costs significantly less than most of its competition.

In addition, the tablet’s speakers deliver on the quality front. The dual front-facing speakers are a marked improvement over most tinny tablet tweeters. There's one on either of the short sides of the bezel...

That wide separation of the speakers makes the ZenPad S 8.0 great for watching movies, even if the wider aspect ratio means you’ll see black bars at the bottom and top. It works for Apple, so…

A few more notes about the tablet’s exterior. In a forward-looking move on Asus’ part, the charging port is of the new reversible USB Type C variety, which means you’ll have to keep track of the cable Asus includes in the box, because you can’t use one of the interchangeable micro-USBs here that you probably have lying around from other gadgets. (For more on USB Type C, see our primer on Type C and USB 3.1.) Even so, we expect USB Type C to become far more prevalent in the next year or two, so additional cables should soon be easier to come by (and start accumulating on your desk). Also, Asus also placed the charging port on the bottom right when you are holding the tablet in its natural portrait orientation...

At first, that may seem an odd choice, but we found it made the slate a little easier to hold and use while it was charging.

Our only real complaints about the tablet’s physical design are pretty minor. For one, the power and reset buttons are stiff and thin, and the camera lens protrudes a bit from the back of the device. Asus designed in a metal ring around the lens, however, which should help protect it from scratches or cracks...

Table of Contents

Asus ZenPad S 8.0 (Z580CA)

Our Verdict:
With a nice screen and speakers, the ZenPad S 8.0 delivers a media-consumption experience mostly on par with higher-priced premium slates—we’d just like to see more battery life and less bloatware.

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